Tech workers can be rigorous at work and surprisingly loose with their own money. After more than 200 coaching sessions, Vaibhav Goel keeps seeing the same patterns: too much wealth tied up in one company’s stock, excess cash sitting idle, missed tax-advantaged accounts, and generic advice that does not fit high earners.
In this episode, Marc Baselga and Ben Erez sit down with Vaibhav Goel, a former product leader at DoorDash, Google, Lyft, LinkedIn, and Microsoft who now coaches tech professionals on their finances. They unpack what changes at different net-worth levels, how to think about 529s and concentrated equity, why traditional advisor models can miss this group, and what a more practical financial plan can look like.
They explore the most common money mistakes he sees, how priorities shift at different net-worth levels, plain-English breakdowns of things like 529 accounts and long-short investing, why traditional advisor incentives leave a lot of tech workers underserved, and how to think about diversifying a portfolio that has become dangerously concentrated in one stock.
If you’re a tech worker who optimizes everything at work but defaults on your own finances, someone sitting on concentrated company stock and unsure what to do next, or anyone curious how the newly wealthy actually handle sudden money, this episode is for you.This conversation is for education only and is not personal financial, investment, or tax advice.
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In this episode, we covered the following topics:
* (01:05) Why VB left a dream PM career at Doordash, Google, Lyft, and LinkedIn to become a money coach
* (03:35) The Shopify side business that gave him his first real taste of fulfillment
* (05:39) A decade as his friends’ informal money guy, and the awkward shift to charging
* (08:34) Ben’s counterpoint: charging can actually free friends to ask for more help
* (11:07) What 200-plus sessions reveal about his clients and how personal money really is
* (13:10) The client who is 100% in Tesla, and why people come to him for a second opinion
* (16:36) His coaching process: a financial one-pager, then action items every two weeks
* (19:05) A plain-English breakdown of 529 accounts
* (29:35) The most common mistakes: too much cash, over-concentration, and skipped tax accounts
* (32:18) What to focus on at each net-worth level, starting under $1M
* (44:18) Why advisor incentives leave the “mass affluent” tier underserved
* (01:00:07) The QQQ game: big single-tech stocks underperforming the index
* (01:06:25) Diversifying concentrated stock with exchange funds and buy-borrow-die
* (01:10:06) Why tech workers optimize everything at work but not their own money
* (01:16:48) Gratitude Corner: VB thanks his grandparents, a teacher, an anonymous donor, and his wife
* And more!
Links:
* Vaibhav Goel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/govaibhav/
* Vaibhav’s Calendar: https://calendly.com/simple-money/intro-call
* Marc: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbaselga/
* Ben: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benerez/
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